Catholic Church News

His Holinesss Pope Francis arrives at the Villamor Air Base in the Philippines moments ago to start his five-day visit to the country which will bring him to the typhoon-devastated city of Tacloban in Central Philippines to meet with typhoon survivors.

Rome -
Despite Pope Francis saying homosexuals have "gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community" and a push by LGBT rights groups for a more accepting Catholic Church, the Vatican has backed away from its "Welcoming Homosexual Persons" stance.

Santiago -
A criminal court in Chile ruled that priest John O'Reilly is guilty of repeated sexual abuse of a minor, a former student of an all-girls’ school. The child was five years old at the time the alleged abuses took place.

Cabildo -
Father Ignacio Miranda of St. Lawrence Catholic Parish in the town of Cabildo in Chile announced his resignation from the priesthood after admitting his relationship with a woman and confessing that he will be daddy of twins within a couple of months.

Pope Francis has declared Pope John Paul II a Roman Catholic Saint. Having been a local witness to this event, I recalled seeing Pope John Paul II in action when I was a youth participant of the 1993 8th World Youth Day in Denver, Colorado, USA.

In his Easter message during his homily on Maundy Thursday at the Mass of the Last Supper, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle showed his dismay about people being treated as material objects in such a way that everyone seems to have a price,

Aware the Catholic Church has been heavily criticized for not responding adequately to the issue of child sex abuse by priests, Pope Francis made a strongly worded apology on Friday. He did so while meeting with child-rights groups.

Documents revealed today by the Vatican show that in 2011 and 2012 Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests for child sexual molestation. While the numbers are higher than previous, the Church has only been releasing statistics for 4 years.

Philadelphia -
A Catholic priest’s conviction for child endangerment was overturned today by a Pennsylvania appeals court because the child endangerment law did not apply to those supervising people who are in charge of children.

Philadelphia -
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has removed three suspected pedophile priests, two priests accused of misconduct, and placed another on leave as an investigation into clergy child sex abuse moves forward.

Talks of having a first woman cardinal in Vatican have been spreading like wildfires and rumors are swirling around that reformist Pope Francis could break a canon law of 1917 that says only ordained men can take the role.

Havana -
The “Plaza de la Catedral”, located not far from Old Havana’s Main Plaza, is the best known square in Havana and is considered one of the most beautiful and harmonious in Latin America. The mansions surrounding the plaza date from the XVIII century.

A Catholic bishop in the Philippines said he is ruling the possibility of same sex marriage in the predominantly Catholic country, but admitted that a gay man can marry a lesbian without violating the teachings of the Catholic church.